While most of the world’s attention is diverted by a non-existent “Climate Emergency”, a real planetary emergency is brewing. The Earth’s magnetosphere is weakening at an accelerating pace.
Spaceweather.com keeps track of incoming cosmic radiation and it’s various effects and consequences, one of which is an increase in a spectacular lightning phenomenon; Sprites.
BRIGHT RED SPRITES: According to NASA, cosmic rays are intensifying. Martin Popek of Nýdek, Czechia, witnessed a likely side-effect last Friday night. “Red sprites exploded from the tops of two thunderstorms in front of my cameras,” he says.
“The sprites were huge, and I could see them from quite a distance,” he adds. “One storm was in the Adriatic sea about 550 km away, with a closer storm over Slovakia distance at a distance of 115 km.”
Hundreds of kilometers may sound like a long way, but a bit of separation helps when it comes to observing sprites over the tops of towering thunderheads. Here’s why.
Cosmic rays are increasing because of Solar Minimum. During this phase of the solar cycle, radiation from deep space penetrates the sun’s weakening magnetic defenses and enters Earth’s atmosphere in greater numbers than usual. Some researchers believe that cosmic rays provide the ionizing “spark” that triggers many sprites.
Space Weather is a great resource, tracking Near-Earth asteroids, airflight radiation exposure levels, solar flares and geomagnetic storms etc. MH
